EXPEDITION TO THE LAURENTIAN HILLS. 185 



pedestrianistn : we had enough of that afterwards. I will 

 say, however, that the traveller on the Hastings Road, after 

 reaching Jordan, sixteen miles beyond Madoc, if he consults 

 his personal comfort, will eschew all other modes of convey- 

 ance except those with which nature has furnished him, — his 

 own legs, or perhaps horseback-riding. Even the latter is 

 not the safest operation a man can perform. Hastings Road 

 from Jordan to the York River is truly a " hard road to 

 travel." 



McKillican's is the clearing and habitation of Benjamin 

 McKillican, a worthy Scottish Highlander, who, with his fam- 

 ily, emigrated from Inverness to Canada many years ago. 

 Nine or ten years since, he settled on the Hastings Road, 

 took up government land and began improvements. He is now 

 seventy years of age ; a friendly, hospitable, honest man, 

 and a fine representative of the Scottish faith and earnestness 

 in religion. His family, at the time we were there, consisted 

 of himself and wife ; two handsome daughters, who in health, 

 refinement, and industrious activity, were noble specimens of 

 backwoods life ; and two younger sons. Our acquaintance 

 and sojourns with this family, first and last, are among the 

 pleasant memories of our ex])edition. 



Seven miles west of McK.'s was Mr. Hutchins's old trap- 

 ping ground. Four years before, he had left it at sixty years 

 of age, and gone to the war. Those years had made as great 

 changes in the backwoods as in the Southern Confederacy. 

 Other ti'appers had come in and " occupied the land." Set- 

 tlers were penetrating the wilds on either hand. Fires had 

 swept through vast tracts of forest. Mink, beaver, and fisher 

 had become less numerous. If we would find good trapj)ing 

 grounds we must go on towards the North Pole, or penetrate 

 many miles into the wilderness, east or west from the Has- 

 tings Ro'id. The next morning after our arrival at McK.'s, 

 the question of location was fairly before us. We made in- 

 quiries, we sent out scouts, we studied the maps of the country. 

 The result was, the selection of Salmon Lake and the adja- 

 cent region, seven miles northeast from McK.'s, as our 

 *' camping ground." The locality seemed attractive on the 



